Fun and Easy Earth Day Craft Project: Make Recycled Crayons.... Out of Crayons

We're pretty crafty here at the Random Handprints household, but it I am the first to admit we are often more about process then results. Rarely does one of our projects come out well enough to be blog worthy. So, it is with great happiness that I share with you a super-fun project I did with my girls (ages five and seven) that was easy, and had great results.

Best of all, this project uses up all the old bits and pieces of broken crayons so it's eco-friendly, too.

Here's what to do:

1. Gather all the broken crayons you can find. Personally, I turned this into a clean-under-the-beds and look-behind-the-books kind of project since the kids were inspired.

2. Take the paper off the crayons and discard any cheap ones that aren't likely to be made of wax, because if they aren't the don't melt as well.

3. Arrange the crayons artistically in muffin tins.

4. Put them in the oven (preheated to 200 degrees) for five or ten minutes. You can watch them melt (which my kids loved) and when they've liquefied, they're ready to come out.

5. Let them cool (at least thirty minutes), and they should pop right out of the muffin tins once they've hardened.

6. Enjoy drawing with your new crayons, or give them as an eco-fabulous present.  I think they'd make great birthday party favors, too.

7. Try not to think too hard about what it means to have just spent an hour making crayons out of... crayons.